Remembering Rosemary Nelson

Posted by Jim on March 18, 2018

Remembering Rosemary Nelson

By Mandy Duffy

 

Human rights lawyer, Rosemary Nelson, was murdered on this day 19 years
ago by an under-car booby trap bomb. The attack was later claimed by a
Loyalist death squad the LVF, but the level of sophistication points the
finger firmly at British military intelligence for Rosemary’s murder.
Mandy Duffy remembers Rosemary on her anniversary.

I first met Rosemary Nelson via a mutual friend. She was of course known
to me before that as she was a well-known solicitor in Lurgan, but I
really got to know her via our mutual friend and I quickly discovered
that this smart, accomplished woman loved nothing more than a night out
with her friends and we had many wonderful nights, leaving me memories
which I treasure and won’t share here!

Later I joined Rosemary on a committee to establish Irish Medium
Education in Lurgan and witnessed first hand the passion and commitment
she had for the Irish Language and when I look at the flourishing
Naiscoil/Bunscoil we have now in Lurgan I smile and think of Rosemary
and how proud she would be.

I don’t think I need to relay the astonishing work ethic Rosemary had as
that is widely known throughout the world, I witnessed first-hand the
work she did not just for Republicans but for the community of Lurgan.
There is a myth that Rosemary only had Republicans as clients but that
is simply not true Rosemary had clients from all sections of the
community and if Rosemary was your solicitor she gave you 100 percent.

When I met my now husband I saw a lot more of Rosemary in a professional
capacity and she was amazing and never afraid to push the boat out and
pursue complaints against the RUC. She let them away with nothing
including a false arrest case when they arrested the wrong brother and
held him for half an hour in a land rover before they realised. We were
filling her in on their mistake and laughing about it and straight away
she said “is that right? I will be suing them for false arrest.”

During the Drumcree standoff, I spent night after night with her in the
community centre on the Garvaghy Road and watched her in her element
taking everything in her stride despite being exhausted as she rarely
slept relying on her never-ending supply of coffee to keep her going. I
watched as she was spit at by the RUC and assaulted by the RUC in
Portadown and one thing was clear to everyone there; they hated her with
a passion.

I know so many people who were told during stop and searches by the
Brits and the RUC that Rosemary was going to be dead soon and Rosemary
herself told me about the death threats she received and the
intimidation she was under. She was stopped and searched so many times I
recall at one stage her being stopped and searched nearly every time she
pulled out of the car park beside her practice and she put in complaint
after complaint but it never stopped them from targeting her for
serious, persistent harassment or eventually carrying out what they
repeatedly said they would do.

My last conversation with Rosemary was a week or two before she was
murdered and I will never forget it: Sitting in her office in a cloud of
smoke drinking coffee and chatting about the Patten Commission (off all
things) as I was leaving she asked me what our RUC Harassment levels
were like lately and I told her honestly that we had, like a lot of
Republicans at that time, noticed a massive decline and that I felt that
they were under orders not to rock the boat she said ” well they are not
under orders to stop mine” and told me she was still being tortured. I
told her to be careful and she just laughed.

The night before Rosemary was murdered I can recall vividly the chopper
being up over Kilwilkie all night. I remember saying that something must
be going on down in Kilwilkie as that chopper has not moved all night
from the one spot. The next day I was walking into town and a fire
brigade went flying past me quickly followed by an ambulance and 5 mins
later a car pulled up and a friend of mine shouted out “they’ve got her
Mandy, they’ve got Rosemary”.

I have no doubt in my head that Rosemary was murdered by the State. The
conclusion of the inquiry into her murder which read: “The inquiry found
no evidence that state agencies (the RUC, British Army and MI5) had
“directly facilitated” her murder, but “could not exclude the
possibility” that individual members had helped the perpetrators. It
found that state agencies had failed to protect her and that some RUC
intelligence about her had ‘leaked’. Both of these, it said, increased
the danger to her life. The report also stated that RUC officers had
publicly abused and assaulted her in 1997, and made threatening remarks
about her to her clients, which became publicly known. It concluded that
this helped “legitimise her as a target in the eyes of loyalist
terrorists”.

I certainly don’t believe Rosemary was murdered by Loyalists. In my
eyes, they didn’t have the capability to carry out such a sophisticated
attack. She was murdered by the British State and sadly we lost a not
only a brilliant solicitor but also a beautiful, generous friend.

 

* Mandy Duffy is vice-chairperson of Saoradh and an IRPWA and community
activist, based in Lurgan North Armagh.